Our home at ISB

it occured to us we never talked about our housing arrangement here at ISB (Indian school of business). the campus is located about 30-40 minutes west of downtown hyderabad. it's less developed out here, but this is were a lot of the tech companies are setting up shop. microsoft and infosys are across the street. there are a bunch of apartments going up on the other side of us, which people have said are for the microsoft and infosys employees.

the campus breaks up into four sections; the atrium, the student villages, faculty housing, and the rec center. the campus is circular and everything is based around the atrium which is where the classes, administration, computer room, dvd library (yea), and cafeteria are. the atrium is 5 stories tall and it's raised, so there is a shaded courtyard under it where students hang out. there are currently three student villages for housing (we are in student village 1 otherwise known as sv1), but they are building the fourth which will complete the circle, so to speak. the rec center is b/w sv2 and 3 and the faculty housing b/w sv1 and 2. everything is very close and all of shirley's classes are on the same floor, so getting around is quick and easy.

the campus is less than 10 years old, but something about style and construction makes it seems more than 20 years old. the grounds are quite nice and well manicured. everyday there are people watering, raking leaves, or sweeping some part of it. i find it a little odd about the amount of water they use on the grass here when i know so much of the country is dry. as for the leaf raking it's all done by women using 2' sticks that are tied together. it's not like a rake we're used to where we can stand upright, there is no handle so they have to bend over 45 degrees to reach the ground. it pains me just to watch them do it.

all of the student villages have a super tall tower in the middle of them, so you can see them from anywhere on campus. each student village has around 10+ buildings, labeled alphabetically. most of the units are 4 separate rooms with a shared common area. since shirley and i are a couple we were able to score our own apartment which is awesome. we have a private bathroom, living room, and balcony which is super cool. we also have a/c, but haven't used it yet, rather we just leave the windows open (with the screen shut though). when one of the other exchange students, who's living in the normal dorm style room, saw our place he literally gasped at how much space we had. it definitely made us appreciate our place even more.

here are some pictures (click the arrow to the right).